You’re about to get annoyed.
Why? Because you’re about to meet a 21-year old copywriter who is succeeding, big time.
It’s okay, he annoys me too. (If you’re anything like me, you were decidedly NOT doing anything so professional at 21. Not by a long shot.)
Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy. But c’mon, his copy was getting praised by legends in the business before he was old enough to buy a beer.
Seriously, how annoying must it have been to be in a room full of copywriting and marketing veterans and hear THIS from the lips of Gary Halbert himself …
“This letter is so good – I recommend everyone here get a copy of this letter and put it in their swipe file!”
I’m surprised no one jumped him after the seminar.
It’s obvious this copywriter’s star is on the rise. Just like his clients’ bank accounts.
His name is Caleb Osborne, (leave it to Caleb to give us a picture with him next to a beautiful woman, that’s Tanya, by-the-way, who keeps The Total Package and Response Ink running.)
Caleb’s got so much copywriting talent we even tried to get him to come work here at The Total Package once, but he was booked out too far with clients.
Let’s get started.
John: Why
don’t we just go ahead and get started then? I wanted to
start by talking to you about how you got started in copywriting;
where you were before and what got you interested in it.
Caleb: I’ve
always been involved in martial arts, and I came across some advertisements
by Matt Furey. That was my first exposure – to a sales letter
and direct response.
Around the time I turned 18 though, I self-published
my first book about Christianity, and kind of copied what I saw
Matt Furey doing to write my first sales letter and put up my
first website… and really just researching free information
on the Internet to figure out how to set up e-mail marketing and
all that. And that first letter was successful and I sold a few
copies of that book, but it wasn’t a full-time income.
So I decided to start a web design business, and
I forget I needed to learn how to sell people websites. So I started
a sales job kept studying direct response advertising. I stumbled
onto Gary Halbert then in December 2005 I went to the Gary Halbert
“The Root Canal Seminar” in Orlando.
I went and you could bring a sales letter and he
would critique it or something of that nature. And basically,
I brought a sales letter I wrote and on one of the days, he stood
up after he read it, told everybody that they should have it in
their swipe file because it was so good.
Caleb: I was like,
“Wow, that’s cool.” And by the end of the day
I had people asking me to write copy for them. At first I was
– turning them down because it wasn’t what I was planning
on doing, then I thought, “Well, you know, this wouldn’t
be a bad way to earn some money.”
Caleb: So that’s
pretty much how I got started.
John: Wow,
that’s pretty cool. It’s not bad having such high
praise from Gary Halbert right out of the gate.
Caleb: Yeah, you
couldn’t ask for a better pitch for your services!
John: So
from there how did you go about building your copywriting business?
Caleb: The first
client I had was from that seminar. – It was actually this
guy who was selling an e-book online, and I just gave him some
marketing advice to be nice and I can’t remember who contacted
who first, but I ended up writing my first sales letter for him.
Then my second major client was also an attendee
from that seminar. And basically, in my experience I just did
a good job, over-delivered and was generally nice to work with
… and that second client kept coming back and kept me really
busy my first year.
Caleb: Really, you
know, making sure your clients are happy is one of the big things
because I figure about 80% of my work last year was from one client.
John: Wow.
Caleb: Then towards
the end of my first year I started working’ with another
client who’s pretty much been the majority of my work this
year. And really, if it’s somebody who’s already got
an established business, and they have a need for a good copywriter,
then just by making him happy and making sure they get results
and just over-delivering --
John: Yeah.
Caleb: -- you get
a ton more repeat business in the future.
John: Yeah,
it makes a lot of sense.
Caleb: One of the
things I fell into, that I just think is a good tip for any copywriter
or service professional, is getting slammed with a whole bunch
of work and then not marketing myself while I was working.
That’s a trap I think most people, who work
for themselves fall into because you get busy and then all of
a sudden all your work is done and you’ve got nothing.
John: Yeah
Caleb: I’ve
definitely had some “feast and famine” periods because
I didn’t figure that out earlier.
Caleb: So I guess
seminars and networking has been where the majority of my work
has come from. I went to the Makepeace Marketing Summit
last year and it was good -
John: Yeah,
I think - you got honorable mention there, too. And Clay said
it was good enough for him and that he’d put his money behind
it if he had to mail it.
Caleb: Oh. Yeah,
I won the honorable mention there. I was kinda - kind of upset
you won the Grand Prize but it was ok because you turned out to
be a really cool guy.
John: Yeah,
sorry to ruin your day. -
Caleb: So that
seminar was good because I got to meet you, John McCrea, and a
bunch of other writers. And plus there was lots of time for networking
with other business owners besides learning to write copy like
Makepeace.
If I was going do it again - I still think seminars
are a great way to do it I would say the best thing to do is –to
go to seminars that aren’t about writing copy… but
rather focus on business owners… that way you’ll
obviously have much less competition with the other copywriters
out there.
John: Right.
John: Yeah.
Caleb: Another point
to remember is every contact you make is important, you’re
always representing yourself. From that first Gary Halbert seminar,
in 2005 I went to, I just got a phone call from a guy I met there,
last week. And now he’s the Marketing Director for a big
name, “Info Product” guru and, my name was the first
one that popped up in his head when he found out he needed freelance
copywriters.
In my experience, everything you do, every time
you connect with somebody, it usually comes back.
John: Yeah.
Basically, as a copywriter you’re a service professional,
and I don’t think there’s anything more powerful than
networking for getting clients.
Caleb: Yeah, word
of mouth and referrals - especially when you have a referral it’s
like selling yourself is pretty much done.
John: Yeah.
John: Cool.
Let me go back a little bit. I know you said you had a sales background
and since copywriting is just salesmanship in print it’s
great training.
So what kinda stuff did you do in sales? Were
you selling for your own business or what?
Caleb: Yes, I started this web design
business, then I realized I really didn’t know what
to do to get people to pay me money for those websites,
so I figured I should get a sales job.
I think it was the beginning of 2005, or the end
of 2004, I started a commission-only sales job selling whole house
water treatment systems.
John: Okay.
Caleb: At a pretty high
price range too, around $3,000.00 to $5,000.00. They’d cold
call people and set leads for you and that you’d drive-up
for your appointment, test their water, give your presentation
and ask for the order.
So about after two months of starving, I finally
got the hang of it and figured out how to really ask for the order
and present benefits and it was really instructive in that way.
I went from there to another company selling a
coating system for houses with a lifetime warranty with the same
type of commission-only deal, in-house appointments, face-to-face.
But the price point was a lot higher; I think one of the most
expensive jobs I sold was $45,000.00.
John: Wow.
Caleb: When dealing
with that much money, you really learn to go through your process
of getting people interested, relating it to them - you know,
the benefits for them; building up the value of the product.
John: Right.
Caleb: And asking for the Sale.
I learned a ton there and I had a great sales manager that just
listening to him talk about his sales career was amazing; he was
this grizzled old sales veteran who had seen it all. It was awesome.
John: Cool.
But now, do you find that that experience translates pretty much
directly into your copywriting?
Caleb: Definitely,
One of the things with my experience with face-to-face selling
(I didn’t do anything with telephone sales) I can picture
the prospect a little better and think of what it is that they’re
doing right now And when you’re going through your process,
it’s easier to sense when he’s believing you …
when he’s not … what things you’re going say
that are going to trigger his “BS alarm” and the different
objections you’re going get after that. Then, finally, what
you’re going have to do to close the sale.
John: Right.
Caleb: Also, there’s
almost something I can’t quite put my finger on, but when
you get a good grasp on selling or you’ve sold stuff to
people, you just GET copywriting.
I didn’t go through the AWAI course and
until the Makepeace Seminar where we got two copywriting books
free, I had exactly one e-book on copywriting. It was just I saw
this stuff online that people were doing with these long-form
sales letters; and it made sense what they were trying to accomplish
with them.
John: Right.
Caleb: Each part
of it. It just clicked.
John: Yeah.
Caleb: Because it
had the same structure as face-to-face selling. You go with the
presentation, a logical presentation of your sales points, show
your proof (when I was selling face-to-face we had these little
3-ring binder flipbooks) but the whole time you’re following
a formula. And with copy you have the AIDA formula. And it just
made sense to me.
John: Yeah,
I think it’s pretty funny actually, ‘cause I was surprised
after seeing when you mentioned that you really hadn’t gone
through, some of the other courses that so many other people have.
You really seem to have much more of an intuitive
grasp right away, without needing a lot of the hand holding that
I’ve seen some of us other ones had to go through by reading
a lot more.
And obviously, your copy work’s great. You’ve
definitely got the skill. That’s got to be through that
experience of face-to-face selling.
Caleb: Yeah, it
must be. I’ve read at least one Gary Halbert letter about
telling people to go get a sales job – selling books door-to-door
or something.
John: Yeah,
and Clayton said the same thing recently; one of the best ways
to improve your skills fast is to get a sales job. So that’s
really cool. Now, you’ve got the sales background, which
obviously translates directly to copywriting, but there’s
also - I mean, obviously, copy is just one piece of the marketing
puzzle.
So how have you gone about learning and studying
the marketing process, in general?
Caleb: That’s
something I think is really important, and maybe overlooked by
most copywriters. I’ve done a couple of things. One, I’m
pretty much on every e-mail list for every Internet marketing
guy.
I try to be on as many of the e-mail lists of
companies I know are successful.
And two people I’ve learned a lot about
direct marketing from are Dan Kennedy and Gary Halbert.
John: Right.
Caleb: Dan Kennedy’s
stuff like “Magnetic Marketing” and his whole
process. You can apply his systems like for lead generation, following-up
and then backend marketing, to pretty much any business.
And with Gary Halbert, even though he always talked
about being the best writer alive, he would admit he really wasn’t
the best copywriter and even some of his clients could write as
good as he did. But he always talked about knowing marketing tricks
he used to call ‘em, “response doublers.”
John: Right.
Caleb: And the actual
marketing strategy was more important than the copy. Like, “The
Dollar Bill Letter” with a $1.00 attached to the top
and things like that.
John: Yeah.
Caleb: These were
a lot more important than the actual words on the paper. So just
kind of studying what offers work and – just paying attention
is really instructive.
John: Yeah.
And I think that’s such a good point you had about being
on a lot of lists. I have a Gmail account that I use to sign-up
for a lot of stuff and it’s great because then I just go
back, and if I want to search on what somebody is doing, I can
go look at. I just search in the account, and pull out all their
e-mails for the last six months or so.
And you pretty much have a lot of their front-end
marketing campaigns. They’re right there for you to look
at and examine; you could see the offers, how they’re selling
it, what they’re saying.
John: And
it’s just taking the time to do it.
Caleb: You can learn
a little bit by just glancing through ‘em. But yeah, if
you really see a company that’s doing well or their marketing
really appeals to you, it’s worth it to go through and just
search and see what they’ve been sending you; and how they’re
pushing their products.
John: Yeah.
Caleb: The total marketing
process is so important, that it's a good tip for any of the copywriters
reading this. If they’re looking for a real big “homerun
win,” try to work with the company that their marketing
is already converting with mediocre copy.
And then the only variable in the process is their
copy you’re almost sure to have a good winner, you know?
John: Yeah,
it’s a really good point. You can get a really good feel
for what someone is doing just by getting on their lists. I think
a lot of people, especially if they’ve been in the AWAI
course and other things, know the idea of going and getting on
mailing lists.
E-mail is the same thing, and so much more promotional
copy is going out now, through e-mail, that you really can get
a real sense, much better than you could in the mail, for what,
a company is doing because it’s so much faster, and there’s
so much more coming out.
And you can start to see, “Well, that copy
isn’t that good, but they’ve been hitting me a lot
on this one, and it seems like they’re doing really well,
so I could probably go after ‘em.” It’s kind
of like that, you know, Clayton call’s it “ being
the direct response bully.” By gunning for promotions you
know you can beat.
Caleb: Right, right,
exactly.
John: And
it’s just a great way to go.
Caleb: Yeah, definitely.
John: Now
you design a lot of your own landing pages and things, don’t
you?
Caleb: Yeah.
John: So
do you bundle those services together? As far as when you deal
with clients do you add that in to the value of things when you’re
negotiating because obviously you’re bringing extra value
to the table.
Caleb: Yeah. I just
started to do that.
I was kind of dumb in the beginning by not realizing
the value of that. I’m doing that now, and I definitely
think it ups the value of your services.
John: How
important do you feel the web design is? Because I think it’s
a really big point to make that the way the copy is presented
really does affect your response rates.
Caleb: I think it
is important, and what really got me more interested in it was
laying out my own pages and stuff and seeing a magalog for the
first time last year and I realized that graphics and layout can
be almost as important as the copy for getting readership and
advancing the sale.
Like we were talking about before you have the
AIDA process and at certain points you want to make a sales point
that wouldn’t fit in the running copy.
John: Right.
Caleb: And you can
use things like sidebars for that. What really got me interested
was Makepeace’s Beat the Blank Page Blues e-Book
he was giving away.
John: Right.
Caleb: And you have
your big promise in the beginning. People are going to want to
know the credentials of your spokesperson. And you have a sidebar
to pull that out.
I really paid attention once I started thinking
about that and started laying out my own stuff … paid attention
to what Agora was doing with their online promotions how they
were laying things out. And really everything that’s come
out of Response Ink anything you guys put out, I pay attention
to. All the sales letters, on The Total Package website,
are laid out well too.
To sum it up there’s probably three goals
when I’m laying out my copy. One, I try to make sure the
design’s appropriate to the audience and the offer; for
example, I did one letter, a little while back, where we were
only sending it out to a select group of guys.
So I did it all courier fonts and trying to make
it look like it was a personal letter to the person. Number two,
you want easy readability. There are a lot of sales letters online
with like tons of highlight, bolds, italics and different fonts
and stuff.
And if you took at magalogs, they’re pretty
clean comparatively.
John: Yeah
-
Caleb: Just make
it easy to read, and that’s the thing Clayton hit on a lotta
times about not making reading the copy a task in itself
John: Yeah.
Caleb: Number three,
the design should imply some credibility. There’s a study
where it showed it only took one to three seconds when people
open your webpage to make a an instant judgment about, you know,
your company and your products.
It’s like a halo-effect, you know? If your
design looks untrustworthy or something they’re not really
used to or inappropriate to that audience then it gives this halo
effect over your whole offer, your spokesperson for the company,
and your products.
John: Yeah,
that’s a great point. It’s easy to get sidetracked
just focusing strictly on your copy, but you really have to see
it in terms of the entire customer experience when they’re
viewing it.
Especially now when you have so much more media
that you could be using on your webpage. I mean, you have video
and other things and - everything you put there is going create
some kind of reaction in your prospect.
So if you’re not thinking about what that
reaction is, then you’re leaving part of the equation out
of your own control.
Caleb: Definitely.
John: Let’s
go into some of your big successes in the last year. Tell us about
some of those.
Caleb: Sure. I recently
wrote a letter for a client who teaches guys how to get better
results – meeting and dating women. The product was a multiple
DVD info product.
It was the most expensive price point they had
ever sold anything for (around $1,000), so they were kind of nervous
about it.
But it was good because I got to pull out all the
stops and really get involved with the whole process; like we
were talking about before with the marketing. I gave some advice
and helped them come up with some of the bonuses … develop
the offer … talked about the launch strategy.
He actually ended up writing all the e-mails for
the launch, leading up to it, because he had just paid me for
the letter.
He was already accomplished as a marketer, so he
was easy to work with.
And it was a big winner. We sent it out first
to 800, pretty much of his best customers, through e-mail and
even on the first day it did just shy of six figures …
John: Wow.
Caleb: …
Over $100,000.00 the first week, and after that he sent it out
to a bigger portion of his list; and it did a little over $200,000.
But that was exciting because everybody was kind
of nervous because it was a high-priced product. But we knew it
was a good product and we presented the right way and had a great
offer so it was good.
John: That’s
great. It’s always a good feeling when you have that. But
it sounds like you’re really delivering more than just copy.
Clayton always calls it, “being the total package.”
You’re helping with strategy; you’re
helping with developing premiums; you’re helping developing
the offer and helping your client in ways that I think a lot of
people overlook.
But, you know, the success of your promotion is
based so much on the offer and strategy that it makes sense for
you and for your clients to focus extra time and energy together
on that.
Caleb: Yeah, definitely.
And I’ve worked with some people where it’s almost
like they want to keep me in the dark as much as possible, about
what’s going on; and it’s like, “No, you just
write this and, you know, that’s your job.”
And it doesn’t help as much as it could when
you’re involved in the whole process. Because then you know
where they are in the process of being sold, what e-mail they
just saw to drive them to the landing page or whatever. That goes
back to what we were talking about earlier with, like, the whole
marketing strategy.
John: Yeah,
I think that’s a problem that people who hire copywriters
should think about because, if you’re really separating
out your copywriter from your strategy discussions, the offer
discussions and things like that, then, you’re not going
get the full value out of your copywriter.
And your sales might not be as good because the
copy and everything should be fairly seamless. And as a copywriter
you have a lot of great ideas that you can bring to the table.
The success of the promotion is really tied into everything –
the strategy, the offer, the whole thing.
Caleb: Yes.
John: And
so the client was doing himself a disservice by not taking full
advantage of a copywriter who has the ability and the knowledge
to help them with more than just writing a landing page.
Caleb: Yeah, definitely,
definitely.
John: Are
there any other promotions or anything that you wanted to talk
about?
Caleb: Actually,
the very next week I did another letter for that same client.
He had a live seminar the month afterwards but hadn’t done
any marketing for it yet at all. So he gave me his outline for
his talk and I banged out a sales letter in less than a week.
John: Wow.
Caleb: And we started
promoting it. I was nervous because people had spent so much money
already the week before on his list.
So I was kind of skeptical about how well it would work. But we
did it through e-mail, and then we also did one physical mailing.
I can’t remember the exact figures; but there were 120 some
people there at around $2,000.00 a seat – and about half
of those were straight from the copy.
That was a good one I was just happy that it did
so well even after the big launch we just did. But in direct marketing,
it’s not logical that people would want to buy right after
spending a lot of money. But a lot of times -
That’s the time to sell them more stuff.
John: Yeah,
exactly. It’s right after someone’s bought, they’re
most enthusiastic about buying from you. That’s why the
hot list names on a mailing list are always the best ones to go
after; they’re people who’ve bought in the last, 90
days and are most likely to buy again.
Caleb: Yeah, but
that one worked out well. So I think that was another six-figure
launch or whatever.
John: Got
to be a pretty happy client.
Caleb: Yeah, he
was pretty happy that month. It was a good one for him. And a
few weeks ago, we did another launch for another DVD set and it
did another six figures the first week (I’m not allowed
to tell specific figures right now) … but I’d say
this particular client is close to a half a mill, probably around
$500,000, richer after he started working with me this year.
I’m not saying that to impress anyone, because
there are copywriters like Clayton adding millions to their clients’
bottom line. But I think it’s instructive for Total
Package readers for two reasons (especially copywriters and
marketing consultants)
One, this was a company who was already successful with mediocre
copy … done in-house … and when I stepped in –
it was almost a sure bet that we’d have a lot of successes
and everyone would come out on top.
And two, because I over-delivered … was
easy to work with … and really did a great job the first
time … this client kept coming back and paying me money
to do more work for them all year.
John: Cool,
so do you write in some markets more than others these days?
Caleb: Yeah, I kind
of fell into it Because in my experience, if you do a good job
and someone’s got a business that’s really growing,
then they have need for more copy; and they just keep coming back
to you.
So - the first client I did a lot of work for
was mixed martial arts and grappling – a martial artist
info products company. And the next client was in the dating niche.
John: Right.
Caleb: So that’s
been the majority of the work.
John: Quick
question: Are you taking on clients right now?
Caleb: Well,
I usually don’t take on a lot of clients. But, I’m
always interested in talking with existing business owners. If
they have something going on that’s of interest to me, then
yes I’m available. My website is www.cashsuckingcopy.com
and my contact information and samples are there for anyone who
is interested.
John: That’s
cool. All right, let’s see - anyway, so I guess what we’ll
do is - I mean, that’s most of the questions I had.
Hey, I appreciate you taking the time, Caleb.
Caleb: Hey, no
problem. Thank you.
